#effortless mastery

[fandoms-and-flute]

Two spoopy nail looks and two books that arrived this week 🤓🤓

[teledyn]

”To educe means to draw out or evoke that which is latent: education then means drawing out the person’s latent capacities for understanding and living, not stuffing a (passive) person full of preconceived knowledge.”

— Stephen Nachmanovich. Free Play

[patrickgregorydaniels]

Making The Connection

You must be nothing but an ear that hears what the universe of the world is constantly saying within you

[anjelikamusic-blog]

We lose sight of reality very easily because of the little dictator in our heads: the mind. Our mind is always feeding us messages: ”I must sound good;” ”This is the right music, that is the wrong music;” ”This is valid jazz, that is politically correct jazz” (yes, we have that these days). Or it sends us messages like: ”I’m not supposed to play really great, because I’m a woman,” or ”I’m white,” or ”I’m European,” or ”only guys who live in New York can really play,” or ”I’m too old, and I can’t learn to play any better.” The mind is always supplying a steady stream of these illusions of limitation. They don’t happen to be true, but they prevent you from seeing or hearing truth

Kenny Werner, Effortless Mastery

[thepracticeofpractice]

Kenny Werner's Practice Snapshots

Pianist Kenny Werner’s book Effortless Mastery has helped a lot of people who struggle with the fear of performance. He’s started a new blog, and part of the blog is a series of videos on how he practices. I’m excited to hear and watch these videos, and…

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[a-lovely-and-a-frightening]

You can have permission to believe in yourself--but that permission has to come from you. No one will give it to you until they see that you already have it.

Kenny Werner, Effortless Mastery

[oncetheywere]

Effortless Mastery

Hey everybody! Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile. It’s that time of the year when it’s hard to get a minute to do much of anything, let alone write up blog posts. But I’m back, and I’ve been doing some reading and discovery I’d like to bring up.

I recently read Kenny Werner’s Effortless Mastery. It’s a book that delves into what it means to be a master, why it comes so difficult to many people, and ways to go about reaching a level of mastership. It focuses very much on the idea that music (or whatever else it is that you’re doing) is easy. There isn’t anything truly difficult about it. The reason it may seem that way is because certain material hasn’t been properly learned, digested, and mastered.

Werner’s idea of mastery (we’ll speak as it’s related to music) is that it’s the ability to perform something flawlessly, every time, without having to think about it. This last part is essential. He likens mastering music to mastering something as simple as walking, and he makes a great point. It’s not something that needs to be thought about once it’s been learned properly. This is because, at a young age, we’re taught to walk in thorough entirety, to the point where it’s mastered. Unfortunately, with music, many people gloss over material before it’s been learned to the point of mastery. Continuing this way, the lack of mastery compounds itself and ties the musician to mediocrity.

After reading the book I reflected on my own musicianship, particularly singing. I personally have never felt that I’m much of a singer. Honestly it’s one of my great weaknesses as a musician. I decided that I would get into very basic vocal exercises and see if I had any level of mastery.

I, of course, did not.

This came as no surprise to me as I never really took voice lessons at all until relatively recently. As I sat down and recorded myself doing very simple five-note scales (do re mi fa so fa mi re do!) I heard many problems. Listening back I heard sharp dos, flat mis, flat sos, and res that were really more like ris. It was, needless to say, extremely frustrating. It forced me to accept that there are a lot of vocal fundamentals that, until this point, I’ve been negligent about nailing down. As a result, my singing has suffered.

Now I am putting a lot of effort into fixing these problems from the beginning. After a few days I’ve significantly improved, but can tell I still have a way to go. While it’s stressful, it is helping me learn how to sing better, tune better, and have a much sharper ear for what’s in tune and what’s not. I’m really glad that I’m doing it, and if any of you feel like you possess any skills that are being held back, I’d recommend checking out the book and taking an honest, objective look at what you’re doing. It’s really tough, but totally worth it.

[mavomusic]

O Segredo da Mestria na Música (e em outras áreas) - Livro interessante do pianista Kenny Werner chamado "Effortless Mastery". Veja a crítica toda em meu blog: www.mavomusic.com